The adage “time flies” gets more and more evident with each passing year. It’s already been more than a year since I last updated this blog. Which isn’t to say that year has been uneventful. I directed much of my online energy to posting to my Facebook and Instagram pages – I hope you’re also following those. If you are, some of what follows in this post will sound familiar.
On Memorial Day weekend, I spent some time in northeastern Pennsylvania. This would be my only “research trip” per se of 2022. It was a research trip along the lines of those trips in the pre-pandemic years. However, having already finished most of the intensive research to be done in the region, I concentrated on polishing—taking fresh and hopefully much better photos of church interiors I originally photographed >20 years ago (with different tech and decidedly mixed results).
Some thoughts: in 2022 the number of Rusyn-founded church buildings from the immigrant era is still quite large, but those with what resembles their original interior are rather few. Icon screens have been replaced (or added, where there had never been one), stained glass windows that probably had very interesting donor inscriptions not in English have been replaced, and even original cornerstones have been removed or replaced.
Church interiors I photographed that weekend include:
- St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church, Freeland, Luzerne Co.;
- St. Vladimir Ukrainian Catholic Church, Scranton, Lackawanna Co.;
- St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Church, Scranton;
- St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church, Scranton;
- St. Nicholas Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church, Scranton;
- All Saints Orthodox Church, Olyphant, Lackawanna Co.
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St. John's Byz. Cath. Church, Scranton
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St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, Scranton
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All Saints Orthodox Church, Olyphant
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Clearly the primary stamp left on this region by Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants and their descendants is these churches, and they are lovely and inspiring, even if today it appears that many of these congregations must struggle to maintain them.
